Families tend to build holiday traditions over time, and our family is no different. But this one is just plain silly!
Let me present to you… the bird ball:
My grandfather was a fan of garage sales. He died in… 1979? So that’s how long this tradition has been running.
And at one unfortunate garage sale he found this ball.
It looks innocent until you plug it in at which point it emits the shrillest most distorted birdsong you’ve ever heard… endlessly.
For extra fun, you can unplug it midway through the song and it will get even more garbled as it fades out.
You can see it’s been hot glued together since the plastic failed.
Anyway, we all hate the thing.
Love to hate the thing.
Every year, the person who had it last year includes it in the presents for someone else, innocently wrapped and often on top of another present.
Every present large enough to hold it is held suspect and gingerly opened until someone finds it.
At which point everyone groans and complains, and we plug it in to remind ourselves how awful it sounds. And then that person squirrels it away to inflict on somebody different next year.
It’s silly.
But we’ve been doing it so long that we keep on doing it if that makes sense!
Do you have any silly Christmas traditions?
Dad died in March of 1982. The bird ball has been around since the early ’70s.
Oh, wow, I was way off! <3